The past is prologue: Rowland at center of FBI dragnet

Neil Vigdor

Updated 11:54 pm, Saturday, March 1, 2014

Photo: File Photo\Douglas Healey

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(FILE) Governor John Rowland of Connecticut with his wife Patty Rowland at his side waving to the crowd in the Legislature Office Building before the start of his second Inauguration Wed. Jan 6, 1999.(The News Times Douglas Healey ) less

(FILE) Governor John Rowland of Connecticut with his wife Patty Rowland at his side waving to the crowd in the Legislature Office Building before the start of his second Inauguration Wed. Jan 6, 1999.(The News ... more

Photo: File Photo\Douglas Healey

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(FILE) Gov. John Rowland makes a point during his interview with the News Times editorial board.

(FILE) Gov. John Rowland makes a point during his interview with the News Times editorial board.

(FILE) -Bridgeport Mayor John Fabrizi (left) speaks with Connecticut Governor John Rowland Wednesday before the start of a party thrown to thank the men and women who worked tirelessly to rebuild the Howard Avenue overpass in Bridgeport after it was destroyed by a truck explosion. less

(FILE) -Bridgeport Mayor John Fabrizi (left) speaks with Connecticut Governor John Rowland Wednesday before the start of a party thrown to thank the men and women who worked tirelessly to rebuild the Howard ... more

(FILE) Former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and his wife Patty make their way through a crowd while entering U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn. March 18, 2005. Rowland received a sentence of a year plus one day in prison, four months of home confinement and three years of supervised release on a federal corruption charge. less

(FILE) Former Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland and his wife Patty make their way through a crowd while entering U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn. March 18, 2005. Rowland received a sentence of a year plus ... more

The closest thing to a ballot box in John G. Rowland's world is a switchboard -- and it is still lighting up.

It's drive-time: On cue, the former governor's legions call in to his afternoon radio show to hear the once-imprisoned Rowland pontificate on the minimum wage, mutual funds and the midterm elections. There's Larry in Middletown, Dave in Windsor and whoever else might be listening. Rowland's on-air persona -- a polygraph straight line -- belies the specter of an ongoing federal grand jury investigation into election law violations that he allegedly committed when he consulted for a congressional candidate in 2012.

Ever the retail politician, the man who was once seen as a rising star in the Republican Party is even hawking cars to his listeners on WTIC NewsTalk 1080-AM, promoting his all-wheel drive Ford Taurus and a dealership sponsor of his weekday program.

Rowland, 56, is the prime target of a far-reaching FBI dragnet for political corruption in the state that also recently ensnared Rowland's former campaign manager and several political aides of former Democratic House Speaker Chris Donovan, a top-level source close to the investigation told Hearst Connecticut Media.

Investigators got their first whiff that Rowland might be running afoul of the law again while they were probing illegal payments made by tobacco shop owners in Waterbury and several of Donovan's associates as part of scheme to kill a proposed tax on roll-your-own cigarettes, multiple sources told Hearst. And sources told Hearst that Rowland balked at a recent plea deal offered to him by the government, setting the stage for an all-out-assault by prosecutors.

A second high-level source familiar with the dynamics of the ongoing investigation of Rowland, a former congressman who became Connecticut's youngest governor at 37 in 1995, characterized his indictment as imminent.

"Any given day now it could be over," the person said on the condition of anonymity. "Something's gonna break."

The show must go on

For a person of interest who has retained the same white-collar criminal defense lawyer that represented key executives of Enron and WorldCom, Rowland said a lot without saying much on his show. Not once did the topic of his latest brush with the law come up during the three-hour block.

Synonymous with the pejorative of "Corrupticut," Rowland resigned as governor in 2004 and served 10 months in federal prison for accepting improvements to his Bantam Lake cottage by state contractors and bribes.

"What's the perception of our state? There's a good question," Rowland asked his listeners at the opening of his show Thursday.

Jeneen Lee, program director at WTIC, the 50,000-watt CBS Radio-owned station based in Farmington, said Rowland's status is unchanged.

"We are monitoring the situation closely," Lee said. "Mr. Rowland continues to host his program in the meantime."

Brass tacks

The jumping off point for the ongoing multi-pronged investigation is said by sources to be Rowland's native Waterbury, where the feds have been combing through a trove of evidence and asking questions about the relationships between scores of state and municipal political operatives on both sides of the aisle in the former brass capital.

Among them is George Gallo, who stepped down as the House GOP chief of staff Feb. 20 when investigators began scrutinizing an abundance of direct mail contracts awarded by the caucus to a Florida printing firm.

Gallo served as Rowland's campaign manager when he was re-elected to a third term in 2002.

"It's certainly related," a source said of the tandem investigations of Gallo and Rowland.

Rowland is being represented by Reid Weingarten, a Justice Department alum-turned-Washington, D.C., lawyer favored by golden parachutists and who is close friends with Attorney General Eric Holder and worked on the Iran-Contra investigation.

Neither Weingarten, whose biography describes him as the "dean of white-collar defense," nor Santos responded to multiple requests for comment about their clients.

Shadow campaign

At the center of the probe is $30,000 in consulting work Rowland did for Apple Health Care, a chain of nursing homes owned by Brian Foley, the husband of former 5th District congressional candidate Lisa Wilson-Foley of Simsbury.

Rowland served as a political adviser to Wilson-Foley during her unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination in 2012, but never reported any income as working for the campaign.

The relationship spawned a complaint with the Federal Election Commission by Mike Clark, a retired FBI agent and GOP rival of Wilson-Foley who alleged that the nursing home consulting fees paid to Rowland were for political work.

Failing to report campaign expenditures to the Federal Election Commission is a crime.

Clark, who took part in the FBI sting that sent Rowland to prison and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2012, declined to comment to Hearst Connecticut Media.

Multiple other sources told Hearst that Foley has "flipped" on Rowland in an effort to protect his wife from prosecution. The couple is also represented by Santos, who did not respond to a separate message for comment.

What is known is that Mark Greenberg, who finished ahead of Wilson-Foley but lost to Andrew Roraback in the 5th District congressional primary in 2012, testified before the federal grand jury that Rowland approached him with a similar a proposition that he rebuffed.

It involved Rowland offering him campaign consulting services in return for being put on the payroll of Greenberg's nonprofit animal shelter, Greenberg has said publicly.

"Mark will not be making any other comments on the Rowland matter at this point, beyond what is already public," said Bill Evans, campaign manager for Greenberg, who is running for Congress a third time this year.

Connecting the dots

The roll-your-own cigarettes sting yielded multiple arrests and prison sentences for eight people, sinking Donovan's candidacy for Congress in the 5th District in 2012.

Donovan was not charged. But the willingness of the U.S. attorney's office to go so far as to attest to Donovan's exoneration in writing, which it did in a Jan. 31 letter to the former House speaker's lawyer, has raised eyebrows.

Some have privately surmised that Donovan could have traded tips that helped lead investigators to Rowland and Gallo in return.

Just when Connecticut was working to repair the damage done to its reputation by a string of political scandals, the state finds its mired in scandal again with a familiar protagonist in Rowland.

"He's giving ex-offenders a bad name," one source said of Rowland.

A number of Rowland's current and past associates who were interviewed said they were dumbfounded by the actions of the former governor.

But not the least bit surprised is John Olsen, who served as both president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the state Democratic Party while Rowland was governor.

"His character has always been a question in my mind," Olsen said. "He probably should have went to jail for a little more time. I guess he hasn't learned his lesson yet."

We interrupt this program

Forget traffic and weather together on the 8s.

There's a burning question at the Capitol.

Would the FBI be so bold as to nab Rowland while he's on the air? Not that the station employing Rowland needs the ratings.

In the Hartford-New Britain market, WTIC NewsTalk 1080 has cemented itself as the ratings leader among AM stations, according to Nielsen Audio.

The callers show their reverence for Rowland, who dabbled on the topic of retirement planning with an in-studio visit from a financial adviser during a recent show.

At one point, Rowland became confused that one of his callers was being denied his pension by his employer. Had that been the case, Rowland said he was prepared to pay the man's employer a visit. The switchboard continued to light up.

"We're available for muscle or financial advice, whatever," Rowland joked.